Outside the Model Garage there was a brief squeak of
brakes. Gus Wilson for once not in coveralls, but wearing slacks and a
plaid shirt, picked up a bulging duffel bag and a tackle box.

"Ah-h-h, trout with French fries!" sighed his
assistant, Stan.

"If I don't get out there fast, it'll be hamburgers,"
remarked Gus as a horn blared outside. Sticking his fishing rod under one
arm, he propelled himself and his luggage to the curb.

An old Chrysler convertible with Florida plates stood
there. The driver's tanned face split into a grin.

"Gus, you son of a gun. All set to pester the
fish again?"

"Just going along with a slick salt-water fisherman
from down-south to make sure his stories stay honest."

Tom Dolan chuckled. "Those big marlin we catch
do spoil us for your fresh-water minnows. But I thought I'd remind myself
how the other half has to live."

Gus got in. He shook his head as the car moved
off. "I can hardly believe it. I was sure some job would crop up at
the last minute and cancel the trip."

"Relax," ordered Dolan. "You're with an expert
at relaxation. I won't let you touch a wrench."

After a couple of hours on the turnpike, Dolan took
an older state highway. Less smooth than the six-laner, it brought out a
few squeaks and rattles in the car. None of which, thought Gus lazily,
mattered at all. His only business for the next three days was fun.

It wasn't quite a rattle-halfway between that and a
squeak. As soon as it stopped, you waited for it to start again. And
it always did. Was it metal on metal or ...

"Forget it," advised Dolan.

"Huh? I didn't say anything."

"You've been trying to figure out that noise for the
last five minutes. Strictly against fisherman's rules, Gus. Besides,
I know what it is."

Gus subsided with a grunt. The noise continued,
apparently from low down on the driver's side. Five minutes passed.

"Okay," exploded Gus. "So tell me."

Dolan chuckled. "It nearly drove me and a few
mechanics nuts before the agency had the answer. The steering shaft is
vibrating against the column. When I get back, they'll pull the shaft and
realign it."

Gus resumed his comfortable slouch.

He woke with a start as Dolan decelerated sharply.
The car stood alongside a gas pump. Adjoining the station was a diner.

A burly youth attacked the dirty windshield, then
raised the car hood.

"Gas first, Ken. Check the oil while the hose
is running." The speaker came into view, a small man in white coveralls.
"New boy, training for a summer job," he explained to Dolan. "Fill it up?"

Dolan nodded. Ken put in the gas hose.

"If you're not too busy," remarked Dolan, "how about
rotating my tires while we have lunch? They're overdue for it."

The small man pursed his lips. "Yup, we can do
it. Put it on the body lift."

When the boy had checked the oil and removed the
hose, Dolan drove onto the lift and explained how he wanted the tires switched.
The station owner chalked them accordingly.

"Watch the marks, Ken," he instructed the lad as Gus
and Dolan walked off. "Keep it neat. Don't toss stuff all over the floor.
You can use the air wrench."

The first rat-tat-tat of the pneumatic wrench came as
Gus entered the diner.

"Do we take route 73 over to Sutton?" asked Dolan
over the soup course.

"There's a new road cuts off eight miles," said Gus.
"I'd like to show you on the new map I left in the car."

He left the diner to get the map. At the rear
of the car, Ken had stacked all four hubcaps neatly and was lifting a wheel into
place. The noise of the air wrench began again as Gus returned to the
table and spread out the map.

"The young fellow's having a good time with that
power wrench," said Dolan.

Only a few miles from camp, Dolan parked before a
hardware store whose gingerbread trim contrasted with chrome kitchenware and
colorful power mowers.

"Swanson has a good line of tackle. Need
anything, Gus?"

"Come to think of it, yes," said Gus as they ambled
in.

While Dolan added to his assortment of lures, Gus
wandered off with a clerk and bought three small items.

On their way again, they found the last four miles
little more than a potholed trail. But they reached their camp well before
dusk.

Trout, bass, and perch rose to their lures during the
next two days. Once, when Dolan left camp to try another spot, Gus stayed
behind. Mixing two of the ingredients he'd bought, he busied himself
briefly around Dolan's car. Then he, too, went fishing.

Heavy rain began the morning they were to leave.
By the time they had camp shipshape and had put up the convertible's top, the
site had turned into a swamp.

"Let's go," muttered Dolan. "Half an hour from
now the road will be afloat."

Puddles stood in the potholes, small lakes in the
dips. Eager to reach better road, Dolan drove as fast as he dared.
On one turn the car slithered out of control, its right front wheel fetching up
solidly against a fallen tree.

He drove more slowly after that. It seemed to
Gus that he sawed at the wheel more than necessary. But eventually the
primitive road ended. Back on the state highway, Dolan put on speed.

In the first turn, the car slewed oddly.
Dolan's knuckles showed white on the wheel, which seemed to buck in his hands.
Gus wondered if he were ill.

A town-limit sign came up, with a sharp curve just
beyond. The car negotiated it in a series of lurches. Tight-lipped,
Dolan slowed to five miles an hour.

"There's a bad front-end shimmy," he said. "I
think the crack against the tree at the camp damaged something."

A gas station just ahead brought to Gus a flashback
of four stacked hubcaps, and a clear floor.

"Better pull in here," he said quietly.

Under the shelter of the station, a mechanic jacked
up the front of the car. As the wheels lifted, the right hand one hung
askew.

"Wheel bearing shot? Asked Dolan.

"No," muttered Gus. "But I should be for not
preventing this from happening."

He snapped off the hubcap, then grasped the wheel at
top and bottom. It shook freely on the studs, for the nuts stood well out.
He fingered them, pulled one off.

"So that's it-that young fellow forgot to tighten
them," said Dolan.

"No, he tightened them," declared Gus. You said
he was having a good time with that air wrench, remember? The reason he
worked it so hard was that he drove on the wrong nuts.

"The boss told him to keep things neat. I
should have caught on when I saw he'd stacked the hubcaps and there were no nuts
on the floor. I'd bet he laid all 20 in the top cap, never realizing that
his car had left-hand nuts on the left side wheels, right hand nuts on the
right. To remove them he just flipped the air wrench control which ever
way would loosen them, but couldn't see which way they turned because the wrench
hid them."

"When he put the nuts back, he forced on any one that
came to hand. The power wrench had no feel to tip him off, but just
mangled the threads until the nuts looked as if they were on. All five
studs are stripped on this wheel. That rough camp road did the rest.
There are sure to be wrong nuts on some other wheels, too. It's like
Russian roulette, only the odds are even worse."

When the rear wheels were jacked up, the right
one-surprisingly-held five right hand nuts. Both left-hand wheels, though
still tight, had two or three wrong nuts and stripped studs.

"Can you get new studs pressed into the drums?"
Gus asked the service man.

"Nearest shop for that's seven miles away," he
answered." I'll yank the drums and lend you my car to take them over."

"I don't understand," said Dolan as they rode the
seven miles. "Why does this car have left and right-hand nuts? My
last car had right-hand ones all around."

"The idea back of using left-hand threads on
left-hand wheels is to keep wheel rotation from loosening the nuts," explained
Gus. "It's vital with the single big nuts that hold knock-off wheels on
sports and racing cars. A right-hand nut on a left wheel would work loose
because of inertia; every time the wheel started to roll, there'd be a loosening
twist against the dead weight of the nut."

Dolan thought for a moment. "I see that, but
five lug nuts located off the wheel center aren't going to loosen just because
the wheel turns left."

"They don't, on Fords and Chevies, and other cars
with right-hand nuts on all four wheels. Besides being off center, the
nuts are lighter, so inertia has less effect. Yet until recently many
makes, including Chrysler, Rambler, and Cadillac, stuck to left hand threads on
left wheels. Lay it to habit or prejudice-engineers are only human.
Maybe it's their way of knocking on wood. Now some models have switched to
all right-hand nuts."

"If you have to change a flat and don't know which
way the nuts loosen, remember that right-hand wheels always have right-hand
nuts. They loosen counterclockwise. On a left hand wheel, see if the
ends of the studs are marked 'L' for left. If not, try counterclockwise
first."

The rain had ceased. Headed for home again, Gus
slumped in his seat.

"Hey! Cried Dolan. "Hear that?"

"Not a thing," said Gus lazily.

"That's it! The steering shaft has quit
rattling, ever since we left camp."

"Seems so," agreed Gus.

"Could switching the wheels have fixed it?
Think one of them made that noise?"

Gus shook his head.

"Something's different," insisted Dolan. "The
whole car seems to run quieter. You did something, didn't you? But
how could you without even a pair of pliers?"

Reluctantly Gus rummaged in the glove compartment.
He held up a small brush.

"No, because it wasn't the shaft. I used a
dodge told me by an old hand in the car business-fellow named Shaw. It
saved him a lot of headaches when customers complained of noises he couldn't
trace."

"You mix a little powdered graphite with banana oil
to the thickness of paint, and brush this on door guides and latches, trunk and
hood locks, and bumpers-any place there's moving contact. The graphite
paint dries and won't rub off-it lasts a year or more. The noise stopped,
so it must have come from some spot I painted. You can forget the steering
shaft."

"So that's what you bought at Swanson's, you old fox.
This saves me more than that wheel-nut mixup cost. Thanks. Only why
did you bother to fix a noise in my car when you were on vacation?"